Mrs. Biggert
introduced the following bill; which was referred to the
Committee on Science, Space, and
Technology

A BILL

To amend the Department of Energy High-End Computing
Revitalization Act of 2004 to improve the high-end computing research and
development program of the Department of Energy, and for other
purposes.

1.

Short title

This Act may be cited as the
Department of Energy High-End
Computing Act of 2012.

2.

Definitions

Section 2 of the Department of Energy
High-End Computing Revitalization Act of 2004 (15 U.S.C. 5541) is amended by
striking paragraphs (1) through (5) and inserting—

(1)

Co-design

The
term co-design means the joint development of application
algorithms, models, and codes with computer technology architectures and
operating systems to maximize effective use of high-end computing
systems.

(2)

Department

The
term Department means the Department of Energy.

(3)

Exascale

The
term exascale means computing system performance at or near 10 to
the 18th power floating point operations per second.

(4)

High-end
computing system

The term
high-end computing system means a computing system with
performance that substantially exceeds that of systems that are commonly
available for advanced scientific and engineering applications.

(5)

Institution of
higher education

The term institution of higher
education has the meaning given the term in section 101(a) of the Higher
Education Act of 1965 (20 U.S.C. 1001(a)).

(6)

National
laboratory

The term National Laboratory means any
one of the seventeen laboratories owned by the Department.

(7)

Secretary

The
term Secretary means the Secretary of Energy.

3.

Department of
Energy high-end computing research and development program

in subsection
(a)(1), by striking program and inserting coordinated
program across the Department;

(2)

in subsection
(b)(2), by striking vector and all that follows through
architectures and inserting computer technologies that
show promise of substantial reductions in power requirements and substantial
gains in parallelism of multicore processors, concurrency, memory and storage,
bandwidth, and reliability; and

(3)

by striking
subsection (d) and inserting the following:

(d)

Exascale
computing program

(1)

In
general

The Secretary shall conduct a coordinated research
program to develop one or more exascale computing systems to advance the
missions of the Department.

(2)

Execution

The
Secretary shall through competitive merit review establish two or more National
Laboratory-industry partnerships to conduct integrated research, development,
and engineering of one or more prototype exascale systems, and—

develop those
advancements in hardware and software technology required to fully realize the
potential of an exascale production system in addressing Department target
applications and solving scientific problems involving predictive modeling and
simulation and large-scale data analytics and management.

(3)

Administration

In
carrying out this program, the Secretary shall—

(A)

provide, on a
competitive, merit-reviewed basis, access for researchers in United States
industry, institutions of higher education, National Laboratories, and other
Federal agencies to these exascale systems, as appropriate; and

(B)

conduct outreach
programs to increase the readiness for the use of such platforms by domestic
industries, including manufacturers.

(4)

Reports

(A)

Integrated
strategy and program management plan

The Secretary shall submit
to Congress, not later than 90 days after the date of enactment of the
Department of Energy High-End Computing Act
of 2012, a report outlining an integrated strategy and program
management plan, including target dates for prototypical and production
exascale platforms, interim milestones to reaching these targets, functional
requirements, roles and responsibilities of National Laboratories and industry,
acquisition strategy, and estimated resources required, to achieve this
exascale system capability.

(B)

Status
reports

At the time of the budget submission of the Department
for each fiscal year, the Secretary shall submit a report to Congress that
describes the status of milestones and costs in achieving the objectives of the
exascale computing
program.